


the universal law of gravitation

by andunetir



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: (maybe; we'll see how it goes), Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, witch!holtz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2020-10-18 07:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20635241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andunetir/pseuds/andunetir
Summary: In hindsight, it makes sense: Holtz's fascination with tech, her endless wealth of trivial knowledge, her choice in attire. If Erin hadn't been avoiding her, she would have noticed much sooner.But Holtzmann is smart and charming and stunningly, heart-flutteringly beautiful, and Erin... Erin told herself she couldn't have that. So, she looked the other way.Unfortunately for her, her daemon and the laws of physics have different ideas.





	1. Tabitha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd, unedited and written at 4am on Friday the 13th, which also happens to be the full moon and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In short: all mistakes are mine.

“You carry a lot of tension in your shoulders.”

It's the sound of a blowtorch firing up that makes her turn, more so than the voice that speaks. She blinks, gaze rising past kicked-up boots and striped socks to overalls and a statement necklace (capital U? What's that supposed to—oh, _ screw _ U, har har, very funny, she gets it) before landing on lips so red, she can almost taste them from across the room.

“I’m sorry, hello? H-who are-who are you?”

The woman’s smirk deepens. She tugs one massive rubber glove off to reveal a smaller, fingerless leather one, the hand inside of which she extends to Erin.

“Holtzmann. Virgo, avid skier, gluten-_full_, and a hundred per cent jazzed to meet you.”

Erin glances at the orange cat on the table, and Holtzmann adds, “That’s Tabitha.”

The cat picks her way across scraps of metal. She doesn’t say anything, but then again, not all daemons like to talk to strangers. Ruari doesn’t offer a greeting, either—though Erin attributes that to the discomfort she suddenly senses from him, which is immediately explained by the arrival of Abby and Godwin.

Seeing them hurts, as much as she’d like to pretend it doesn’t. They were friends—_best _ friends, of the touching-each-other’s-daemons variety. She still remembers the feel of Godwin’s hair under her fingers when he first settled, and now the bonobo can’t even bring himself to look at her.

Yeah. It hurts. She kind of deserves it, but knowing that doesn't make it any better.

Holtzmann wraps an arm around Abby as she says, “She’s very loyal. She would _ not _ abandon you.” Erin thought she’d recovered from the bombshell that was the end of their friendship, but there must still be some shrapnel lodged in the wounds, because she feels a hundred little splinters twist deep inside her.

The phantom ache haunts her all the way to the Aldridge Mansion, where they encounter a very different sort of haunting. A class-4 apparition turns out to be a highly effective distraction, so much so that she completely forgets how a tenure-track professor at Columbia should behave.

That, and how odd it was that Holtzmann carried Tabitha around in one of those transparent pet backpacks instead of letting her walk by her side.

****

She doesn’t expect to lose her job. At least, she didn’t, until Filmore pulled up the video of her ectoplasm-covered self squealing about ghosts, Ruari bucking in the background like a deer possessed. The one saving grace about the whole situation is how quickly it ends—awkward breakup with Phil included.

(If she’s honest with herself, it’s been a long time coming. She resigned herself to purely disappointing relationships after realizing that love just wasn’t for ghost girls.)

The space above the Chinese restaurant is—well, it isn’t particularly nice, nor is it spacious. But Erin finds herself sharing an office with Holtzmann, with her tools and machinery and long coat that is a safety hazard and really shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near said tools or machinery. Holtzmann, who wears patterned ties and bowling shoes and at least one oversized item of clothing at any given time. Holtzmann, with her wild updo and wilder dance moves.

Holtzmann, who flirts with everyone, yet still manages to make Erin feel like every wink and smirk is meant just for her. Erin feels her heart speed up every time she looks at her—mostly because explosions tend to happen on that side of the room, but also because there’s something about her dimple that makes Erin want to march over and lick it right off her face.

(Tabitha is there too, of course. She always feels like an afterthought, as if she knows she fades into white noise under the larger-than-life shadow Holtz casts.)

Holtzmann is dangerous, in more ways than one, and Erin has never been very good at dangerous. Kevin is an empty head wrapped up in a bit of pretty and that is exactly Erin’s type, has been ever since she decided she was done with hoping for something she could never have. Whenever Holtzmann makes Erin feel things that she shouldn't, she turns towards Kevin's biceps and goofy smile and reminds herself that this is safe, this is good, she should keep doing this.

Finding the fourth member of their team helps a lot. Patty and Mel are whip-smart and won’t let anyone get away with shit, especially if said shit is busting a ghost with highly volatile equipment that has never been tested (“I zapped the Dumpster out back!” “Holtzy, that is _ not _ a field test and you know it.”). Erin’s never been particularly interested in history, but Patty has a way of telling a tale that makes the whole room light up. She learns more about America from a week of listening to Patty than she has in her entire life living here—mostly because she’s a hermit who never strays far from work or home, but that’s besides the point.

She quickly realizes that, if she ignores the pure mathematical tedium of her research and explains the concepts in real-person English, Patty picks up on what she’s trying to do quickly. She somehow manages to poke holes in it with zero experience in particle physics. Mel stops bickering with her for long enough to make suggestions, too. It’s invigorating, like working at Columbia never was. Best of all, it’s an even better distraction than Kevin. 

They end up poring over Erin’s work intently, eventually joined by Abby and then Holtz. It does get a little harder to ignore her, then. But Holtzmann’s gaze is sharp behind her yellow goggles, fingers scrolling rapidly through the pages on Erin’s laptop. She pushes away from it suddenly to grab a napkin and starts scrawling, the green Sharpie bleeding liberally through onto the table.

Erin frowns, feeling a little like a lover scorned. Ruari, who plays a little faster and looser with boundaries both physical and emotional, moves closer to peer at the napkin. He stares at it for a long moment before turning back to Erin. “You should see this.”

Leaving her own work to Patty, Mel and Abby (Godwin still refuses to talk to her), she crosses to Holtz’s work station. The engineer turns the napkin a little to color something in, underlines something else three times, then shoves the whole thing at Erin with a grin bright enough to light up half of Brooklyn.

“Let me know whatcha think.”

She finally gets a good look at it—it’s a blueprint for a gun, because this is Holtzmann and Erin honestly doesn’t know what else she expected. No, not a gun: a _ cannon, _ which turns Erin's calculations on charged proton efficiency into a thing of great beauty.

And "Maximum ghost ass-whooping,” as Holtz remarks with a click of her tongue.

Erin looks up—and immediately regrets letting herself come this close. Holtz’s cheeks are flushed with excitement, hair flopping haphazardly across her forehead, and now all Erin can think about is how easily she could reach over and tangle her hands in it and tug her close—no, push her back and crowd her up against the wall, in that threadbare T-shirt that Erin’s pretty sure she got from the trash.

Holtz props her chin up on her hand. Erin realizes, with a jolt, that she’s been staring, and hurriedly takes a step back.

“Uh, yes, it’s, um. It’s great,” she says, lamely. “Very… deadly. Good for killing ghosts, except they don’t really die, do they, because they’re um. Already dead.”

“Mmyeah-huh.” Holtz doesn’t seem fazed at Erin's lack of enthusiasm, though Erin thinks she catches a glint of something—disappointment, maybe, or sadness—as she moves to fiddle with a bit of scrap metal. “Hey, if the first time didn’t get ‘em for good, we gotta make sure the second does.”

“Yes! That’s—that’s it, that’s what we do, we bust ghosts. We—bust—ghosts!” She does a little double fistpump, giggling nervously. “Thanks for, uh, making sure we keep doing that. Yes. Thank you." She pauses. "You’re the best.”

That does get a reaction out of Holtz, who straightens behind the bear trap-looking thing she’s poking at. She winks, then crosses her eyes and tucks her head down so the fat bulges out around her chin. Erin bursts into another round of awkward giggling.

“Okay, Gilbert, take it down a notch,” Ruari mutters, and Erin remembers that she’s not supposed to do this. That she can’t have nice people, because nice people have lives and actual jobs and—and, admittedly, Holtz does the exact same thing as her for a living, so that argument doesn’t really hold up. But then there’s the whole issue of workplace fraternization, especially in such a tight-knit group. Yes, it would fuck up their whole dynamic, and that would fuck up all their busts. Best not to let that happen. Erin tells herself that makes sense.

Just then, lunch arrives from downstairs. Abby starts bemoaning the wonton-to-soup ratio, which is a daily occurrence at this point and so not really a valid distraction. Still, Erin leaps at the excuse to flee from Holtzmann and her beautiful, deadly cannon.

As she nods along to Abby's complaints, Erin sees Tabitha pad over to Godwin. The bonobo strokes her affectionately, scooping her up in his arms. If Erin weren’t so busy not paying any attention to Holtz, she might have noticed that, while Godwin was murmuring softly to the cat, Tabitha only pressed against him and purred.

****

“WELCOME BACK,” yells Holtzmann, as she picks herself up from the shreds of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. “AM I SHOUTING?”

“Yeah,” Erin answers, and, “Where’s Tabitha?” because there’s no way Holtz carried both a proton pack and her daemon backpack into a ghost battle, which means Tabitha must be around here somewhere. But Erin doesn’t see her, and her absence is extremely disconcerting.

Holtz doesn’t seem to hear, shouting instead, “I think the balloon popped my ear!” Ruari moves away from them to look around; he doesn't seem to see Tabitha either, and his frown deepens at the lack of cat daemon.

Patty and Abby dust themselves and their daemons off, already moving towards the Mercado Hotel. Erin waits for Holtz to do the same before asking again.

“Where’s Tabitha? Is she alright?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, she’s got six lives left.” It seems a rather flippant way to address the fact that her daemon is, well, _ gone, _ but then Holtz grabs Erin’s hand and winks, and suddenly other things like those smoldering blue-grey eyes and that damn dimple seem more important. “C’mon. You heard the woman, this city won’t save itself.”

She tugs Erin forwards at a brisk march. Ruari, who is less affected by Holtz's charm and general presence, lopes up beside her to press, “But Tabitha—”

Holtz clucks disapprovingly. “Bust first, chat after. Please leave a message after the beep.” 

She breaks into a jog, Erin stumbling a little as she tries to keep up. Holtz’s hand is so warm in hers, and surprisingly soft, despite her tight grip. Erin's finding it a little hard to breathe. Mostly because she’s not in the best shape, physically, but also because Holtz has turned to grin at her and it’s beautiful, she’s so beautiful, even streaked with sweat and asphalt in the middle of a ghost apocalypse.

Ruari hisses, “Can it, Gilbert," in her ear. He’s right, of course—they really do have to save the city right now—but Erin allows herself to imagine, just for a moment, that they are running away to some remote destination together and she will get to see that smile for the rest of her life.

****

It’s only after they rescue Abby—after her hair literally turns white from stress and what she can only assume is some sort of otherworldly chemical reaction, after she flirts at Kevin (_because I should, _ she tells herself, _ Holtzmann is dangerous and we can't risk fucking everything up_)—that she notices that Tabitha is still missing. Not even in a might-be-lurking-out-of-sight-ten-paces-back way—the space around them is open for farther than even the most independent daemon can wander from their human—but _missing__,_ as in _not here at all,_ as in _what the actual fuck?_

Ruari is visibly distressed, which means he’s also noticed. Erin itches to know, but daemons are always a sensitive topic, so she waits until Patty and Abby have left for the Ecto-1 before she broaches the subject.

“Tabitha isn’t your daemon, is she?”

Holtz wipes down her pistols with the top half of her jumpsuit, not meeting Erin’s eye. “Nope. Just your normal, average, run-of-the-mill orange tabby.”

Erin hesitates, unsure if she should press further. But curiosity gets the better of her, and she blurts out, “Where _is_ your daemon?”

When Holtz doesn’t immediately respond, she hastens to add, “Not—that it’s any of my business. It’s just, I, um. I’d like to know. And I—I guess I’m wondering why you hid that from us for so long.”

Silence, as Holtz continues cleaning. At last, she sighs, looking up as she holsters her guns.

“My daemon is currently in…” She squints vaguely, as if trying to remember. “Zagreb? No—Krško.” A pause. “She’s telling me that’s right. It freaks people out to see me like this, so I try and keep a cat handy. Was doing great until Tabitha fucked up her one job.”

Erin can’t help but stare as Holtz talks. Sure, she and Tabitha never seemed close before—but at least there was _ something _ there next to Holtz, instead of this terrible void that seems almost like nakedness. It's unnerving. Ruari shivers and moves a little closer to her.

“Are you—” she starts to ask, but she already knows that the answer is no. If Holtz were intercised, Ruari would’ve known the minute they met. “You’re—”

“A witch,” Holtzmann supplies. She doesn’t quite look at Erin.

“Oh,” says Erin, and then, “Oh! That’s fine, I mean, you know, it’s like, it’s whatever. Totally fine. Not a thing at all, except that it’s kind of really cool, and, um..."

She inhales, then exhales in a rush. "AndI’dliketoknowmoreifyouwanttotalkaboutit.”

Heat rises to her cheeks, but she forces herself to hold Holtz’s startled gaze. A moment passes. Another. Erin can feel the sweat start to coagulate in her pits.

Then, slowly, Holtz’s face cracks into a grin. She rises to her toes, hand darting out to ruffle Erin’s newly bleached hair.

“Well then, buckle up, kiddos, because hoo boy, do I have a story to tell ya!”

She fingerguns at them, as if none of this very serious conversation just happened. Erin shares a bewildered look with Ruari; Holtz bows, salutes, and turns on her heel.

Erin stares after her as she skips off to the hearse. Something occurs to her then, and she calls after Holtz's receding back, “Wait! What happened to Tabitha?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <s>me, showing up late to the Ghostbusters (2016) fandom with tea and scones: what's up lesbians</s>
> 
> My HDM knowledge is <s>a little</s> _very_ rusty and also fuck canon, so, like Ruari, we're playing a little fast and loose with boundaries here.
> 
> I think, as with things like talking about sex, daemon-touching is no longer as taboo in the modern world. People often touch the daemons of people they care a huge deal about and/or have a strong connection with. So, partners, parents, children, or (in Erin and Abby's case) friends who are so close, they're basically family. The only stipulation is that, unless otherwise stated, the daemon has to be the one to initiate contact.
> 
> I know a human can supposedly pick out a bird daemon from a flock of other identical non-daemon birds, but we're operating on the principle that it's a little harder when a) you're picking out the non-daemon, and b) there isn't a convenient flock of identical daemons to compare with. Tabitha could easily have passed for a daemon in public, but anyone who spent enough time around her and Holtz would've suspected that she was just a very snuggly, ordinary cat. (Erin, clearly, did not sus them out because she was trying so hard to _not_ think of Holtz.)
> 
> Now accepting predictions as to what Patty and Holtz's daemons are.
> 
> Comments and/or gay yelling are much appreciated, here or on [tumblr!](http://andunetir.tumblr.com)


	2. Jillian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Published at 1am with approximately zero chill and/or editing. If you come back to reread and see drastic changes, that's why.
> 
> Not technically a part of Femslash February, but I'm going to go ahead and say updating a femslash fic in February totally counts anyway.

As the plane begins its descent to Newark Airport, Eila finds herself contemplating the nature of humankind.

They are a relatively new species, and a strange one, their lives simultaneously enhanced and shortened by their affiliation with Dust. It is Dust that gives them the powers of consciousness and creation, just as it is Dust that infuses their mortal flesh with decay, such that their bodies inevitably succumb to their own atrophy with time. Yes, a strange one; unlike dragons or mermaids or witches, it is not combat, but illness and age that chiefly lead humans to their deaths.

They are born and raised and killed at an almost animalistic rate, and yet—they outlived the dragons and mermaids, chained and caged the panserbjørne to extinction. One day, soon, they will even outlive the witches. Eila has ridden the winds for nearly seven hundred years, and she has watched the humans raise themselves from the mud to the skies. A strange species, and a tenacious one. She has no delusions about the fate of her own kind.

No witch-children have been born in nearly seven hundred years. Ysen was among the last, and their species will die with them.

_ Jillian, _ comes the absentminded correction across the tenuous connection between them. They have outlived some things, too, chief among them the naming customs of the medieval world. Eila clung stubbornly to her own name, but Ysen— _ Jillian _—has remade herself countless times over the centuries.

She even thinks in English now. Eila understands it because she understands Jillian, but it remains jarring, hearing her roll over the consonants where they should be sharp on her tongue. Jillian blasts human music night and day, supposedly so she can focus, but Eila knows it’s because she doesn’t want to hear the old words of power that come bubbling up through her memory when the world is still and quiet for too long.

Jillian has lived among humans for most of her life, but she has always been and will always be a witch. Eila knows this as surely as she knows her own wings. She will never allow Jillian to settle down and relinquish their magic, for the high wild places still call to her, and what she wants is what Jillian has always wanted.

Even when Jillian refuses to remember. Even when Jillian distances herself as much as possible from Eila, burying herself in an endless maze of processed steel and brick.

Eila had felt the tension building, in the week leading up to the ghost battle in New York. Had finally reached out across the years of silence between them to ask if Jillian wanted her to come to her, if she wanted her to be there, through whatever was about to happen.

Jillian said no. Hours later, Eila felt her own form flicker and was jolted abruptly into Jillian’s body, feeling her pain, the unnatural vise of Rowan-Abby’s hands around her throat.

In the aftermath of the attack, Jillian sat panting on the floor, and Eila’s vision slowly faded back to the purple-pink sunrise over the hills. She abandoned her spell-gathering and flew off as fast as she could to the nearest town, where she snuck onto a bus that would take her to another bus that would take her to a city with an international airport.

As she traveled, she watched the entire battle through Jillian’s eyes. Eila was terrified, but she felt only a thrill from Jillian, the adrenaline high fueling the impossibly fast calculations she made in her head. Angle, trajectory, projectile. Position herself here for optimal advantage. Dodge, aim, shoot. Repeat.

_ “You just got Holtzmanned, baby!” _

When the last attacking ghost had been reduced to a smoldering blob of ectoplasm, Jillian turned—and locked eyes with Erin Gilbert. Eila felt her heart speed up in response, breath catching in her chest, time and space falling away entirely until all that was left was her and _ her. _

Behind her, Ruari lifted his head. A spike of panic shot through Jillian as he caught her eye, and Eila was slammed back into her own self on the bus, halfway across the world.

She tried to stay out of Jillian’s head after that. Sometimes, she couldn’t help it—extremes of emotion or physical sensation always pull both consciousnesses into the body experiencing it—but she tried to stay silent and impassive. She watched as the portal opened its gaping maw in the middle of the hotel lobby. She felt the sharp stab of fear as Erin jumped in after Abby, read Jillian’s flashing thoughts of _ too soon _ and _ want _ and _ no, please, not her. _

The cable burned in her hands as she pulled and pulled and _ pulled, _ and Eila realized, in that moment, that Jillian was hopelessly, irreversibly in love with Erin Gilbert. It wasn’t completely unexpected: Jillian had slept with a good number of human women, and even loved some of them while it lasted. But this feeling, this depth of desire and hope, was something she hadn’t seen in centuries. Jillian hadn’t felt this way since—

Jillian slammed her back out of her head at that. Eila left her alone all the way to Zagreb.

Airports were getting harder and harder to sneak into, but some small daemons got nervous when flying, and hid out of sight in their humans’ pockets. Eila chose one such human and concentrated on passing unnoticed, such that no one paid her attention as she flew behind them as if she were theirs.

The two hours to Vienna passed by in a blur, as did the ten hours to Newark after that. She hid under a seat, Jillian’s exhaustion bleeding over through their connection and knocking her out cold for most of the flight.

When she woke up, there was a brief, beautiful moment when she saw light filtering through the windows of Jillian’s apartment, and not the shoes of the human sitting above her.

_ Hey, _ said Jillian, and there it was again, the apartment overlaid across her vision. _ Sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to hurt you. _

_ You didn’t, _ Eila replied, and meant it. She was a part of Jillian; she understood why Jillian kept pushing her away, even if she didn’t like it. _ You feel like shit. _

_ Been a long time since I got my ass kicked this bad, _ and Eila knew they were both thinking of Jillian’s first true love, the girl Jillian didn’t allow Eila to talk about. _ Where are you? _

_ Landing at 2:20pm local time, _ she said, and felt Jillian’s mind whir to life calculating where she might be based on the plane’s flight path. _ Where do you want me to meet you? _ A pause. _ Do you want me to meet you? _

Jillian was quiet for a little while. _ Yeah. You should—I think I want you to meet her. _ She hesitated, fleeting thoughts of Erin darting across like minnows. _ I think I want you to meet all of them. They’re special, these humans. _

Eila already knew that from watching them fight together through Jillian’s eyes, but it was good to hear her say it out loud. _ Okay. _

_ I won’t make it to the airport in time to pick you up, _ Jillian added, and Eila heard the apology in that statement. _ I can meet you once you’re in the city? Let me know when you get here? _

_ Yes. _ She felt Jillian’s acknowledgment, a sort of awkward mental nod, followed by her presence fading, the apartment window disappearing. Direct communication between them always became weird and stilted, which was why they avoided it most of the time. They were the most intimate of strangers, leading separate yet conjoined lives.

The plane lands on the tarmac, jostling her uncomfortably under the seat. Eila fluffs her feathers and wishes she could say it feels like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, but it felt like the right way to introduce Holtz's daemon and give you all a little insight on this weird, estranged relationship they have. Next chapter is going to be from Holtz's POV, so we'll see a little more of her perspective and the girl she won't talk about.
> 
> The thing about Dust being the reason why humans die is not (to my knowledge) canonical, but it made sense to me as I was thinking about it. My headcanon is that witches live hella long because they separate from their daemons, and so receive a lower concentration of Dust flowing through them compared to humans. Also, pretty much every sentient species apart from humans dies only in combat or when they decide they've had enough, because magic. That's why Eila (and, by extension, Holtz) finds it so fascinating that humans die most often of old age or sickness.
> 
> Eila and Ysen are both short forms for longer medieval names. Stay tuned for Erin's reaction when Holtz tells her what they actually are, and feel free to guess at what they might be in the comments.
> 
> You might recall from the previous chapter that Holtz said her daemon was in Krško at the end of the Battle of New York. According to Google, it takes ~4-5 hours to get to Zagreb by bus from there, and then another ~12-13 hours to fly to Newark through Vienna. Eila has actually left Krško by the time the battle starts, but Holtz probably asked her where she was and she was like "I don't really know, somewhere between here and there?" so Holtz defaulted to her last known location.
> 
> Comments and/or gay yelling are much appreciated, here or on [tumblr!](http://andunetir.tumblr.com)


End file.
